The Perplexing Cubbyholes of the Teenage Heart

It seems that my friend Tony from the Bronx, has, in the previous comments section, dared to show disdain over my deep attraction for Marvin Hamlisch.

There is good news and bad news about my romantic ponderings over this underrated, darker, more mysterious version of Burt Bacharach.

The good news: My feelings for him were way back in junior high school.

The bad news: Marvin Hamlisch was only the tip of the iceberg.

My best friend Mary and I, in 8th grade, shared numerous sultry crushes. I was intensely jealous when, for Christmas, her mother got her a door-sized poster of Mark Spitz, in his Speedo trunks, the red, white and blue ones, his 7 shiny gold medals resting on his tan, shiny, manly chest. I was ready to rip down that taunting poster with my teeth and have my way with it. Our lengthy conversations about how "neat" Mark Spitz was, led to other tittering discussions, which led to our decision to very seriously sit down and make a list called "Guys We Would Do It With."

Perhaps the most disturbing fact about our list is that it included 78 guys. That's a lot of guys to do it with. Especially when we were 14-year-old virginal farm girls and at least 5 years away from letting our freak flags fly.

On the list, among others:

Chad Everett, star of Medical Center. (The 1970s version of Dr. McDreamy.)

David Brenner, comedian with the biggest nose known to man, and who more than slightly resembles a vulture.

Robert Klein, another comedian. (Even then we went for the guys who made us laugh.)

All of the male Not Ready For Prime Time Players: Dan Ackroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Garrett Morris.

Steve Martin.

Robert Redford. (Mary and I both cried when he was brutally gunned down while floating in his swimming pool during The Great Gatsby.)

James Caan. (We suffered through our loud, brokenhearted sobbing to each other over the phone after he so poignantly died in "Brian's Song.")

Clint Eastwood. (Just his scowl could make you pack your bags and leave your momma's house.)

Michael Jackson. (Insert your own joke here.)

Mel Brooks.

Bob Barker. (Yes, I said Bob Barker. Shut up.)

Fred Astaire.

Bobby Sherman.

Johnny Carson.

Doc Severinsen.

Dick Cavett.

Tom Snyder.

Rich Little.

Fran Tarkenton.

All the members of Three Dog Night.

All the members of the Doobie Brothers except the guy who had a walrus moustache.

Richard Chamberlain.

Our biology teacher, Mr. Price.

Robby Benson.

Barry Manilow. I cannot tell you how we loved Barry Manilow. We went to his concert back when they let you bring in tape recorders, and taped his concert on a chintzy blue plastic recorder. Everything on the tape turned out to be indecipherably distorted except for Mary's lengthy monologue (during "It's a Miracle") on the topic of her boyfriend Dave's addiction to Dristan Nasal Spray. I have never forgiven her.

Our first realization of how cruel love could be came when we basked in the great passion we felt for our separate crushes. They were the only men we could not agree on. Indy 500 race car drivers, both of them. But so, so different. I loved Mark Donahue, a baby faced, grinning hunk of a man who looked positively dreamy in his white racing jumpsuit. Mary was betrothed, in her mind, to Peter Revson, heir to the Revlon fortune. A dark, dangerous looking guy who didn't even need to race because his family was so rich already with the swelling profits from lipsticks and blemish creams.

I comforted Mary after Peter Revson crashed and burned in 1974. Little did I know that my own beloved Mark would meet the same dramatic fate in 1975. They had never even met us.

What else could we do but set our sights lower? Our lives were lived among endless cornfields with endless lackluster characters all around. Mary dated Dave and his Dristan bottle until junior year when he threw her over for a boring, squinty eyed dullard of a girl with a face like a cat squeezing through a fence. My first high school boyfriend was Dale, whose dream it was to be a mortician. He was a year older than me, and when he left for college a day before my birthday, he gave me a new blow dryer and told me "I'm gonna marry you someday." That did not come to pass. And neither did his dream of being a funeral director. He flunked out of mortician school. Mary and I escaped our town and never went back.